MEGA-CITY ONE

BY FRAZER IRVING

This was a classic "V" shape composition of which I tried 2 versions. Basically the idea is that the figures lead you in towards the figure at the centre, which was Rico. I had decided that Rico was gonna be the main dude cos he was scariest, and this sketch utilised the "V" and made the figures more animate than in the other version. This was rejected cos of the whole "V" thing.

This is the design that tharg dug the most, mainly because it's a reverse "V" comp. The main guy is at the head of the crowd and he's therefore likely to jump off the shelves. And this is what covers have to do.

This was my "marvel" cover idea, where in the tradition of old marvel covers the figures were criss-crossing each other in a frenzy of activity. This was rejected because it looked like a Marvel cover.

The original "V" composition. The figures were a little stiff here, tho I felt it had a certain Gravitas about it. The Munky guy is centered at the bottom and tho this works nice in compositional terms, I felt the drama was lacking. Tharg rightly said "NO".

After the choice was made, I did a quick ink sketch of the final comp. Here we had all the figures in their positions and some details so tharg could see the expressions etc. this was what I used as my guide to make the final drawing from, so if ye overlay this over the final art you'll see it matches up purty well. I ditched the squiggly "Necrlines" from the background in favour of a more funky effect later.

The final image. The colours were tricky here, as I had the final page of the story to work from and carlos had done some nice greens to make it all look spooky. I wanted to do the same but knew that some contrast was needed. The idea to make the Monkey yellow and then to recede to a cold turquoise was a standard art theory trick, and I'm dead glad it worked. The swirly B/G effect was a happy accident that I'll be making more of in the future. As a final note, the focus on this pic for me was the madness in rico's eyes. He's looking at YOU.